On Saturday, January 25th at 7:30pm, I held a shop concert, featuring Yuri Liberzon.

When my friend Peter Zisa —one of my favorite guitarists— came down from Oregon to play in my first shop concert and help with a presentation on guitar making I gave at the UC Botanical Garden, he mentioned admiring the work of Bay Area musician Yuri Liberzon, who’s played in Peter’s concert series in Portland.  Yuri came to both events, after which we arranged to meet at the shop to explore a performance date. Since musicians in my series play my guitars, we had to make sure he’d be comfortable doing so.  No matter how good the player or instrument, the guitarist must feel some connection to the guitar, or the player, instrument, music, and audience are not well served.

After briefly playing a few of my guitars, Yuri decided they would do just fine, and I, perhaps even more quickly after hearing him play, was sure I wanted to bring him to the shop to perform for you.  With burgeoning worldwide opportunities to study guitar, including the fine program at the San Francisco Conservatory,  one encounters dazzling mechanical facility fairly often.  Far rarer is Yuri’s ability to join his own developed musical sensibility with those of the composers to dynamically and lyrically evoke their unique spirits. Please plan to join us.